Max Chapman was one of the heroes when the futures industry was under attack from those in Washington who believed that stock index futures were the cause of the stock market crash in 1987. After graduating from Columbia Business School in 1969, Chapman went to work at Kidder, Peabody & Co. where he was instrumental in creating the firm’s financial futures department in 1979 and co-founded its high-yield bond group in 1986. Shortly after the 1987 crash, the government convened a committee led by Nicholas Brady to investigate the causes of the crash. Chapman, one of four FIA representatives who met with the committee, eloquently explained the utility of index futures and promoted the use of “circuit breakers” to describe a proposed system of trading halts that was subsequently adopted by the markets. Chapman rose to president and chief operating officer of Kidder Peabody, then moved to Nomura Securities, where he became the first American to serve on the board of a large Japanese financial institution and played a leading role in the firm’s international trading operations.
